If a poem’s not a striptease,
It’s just a dry hump.
Please please
me, my sweet sweet!
Shake your rump!
If a poem is a striptease,
we’ll feel the breeze
as we hunt the Heffalump,
Piglet and I—aiming to please
ourselves alone. Hear the trees
in this hundred-acre dump
shaking so’s to tease
our tender soles,
footin’ by the old mill pump.
It’s only about pleasing
Do I want to see myself as
others see me—
an annoying old white guy?
I’d rather see than be me.
But I’m my own best bestie:
I’m cute, and I’m eight miles high.
I’d rather not hear myself as others hear me
just another dreary
droner. Why
on earth would you want to read me?
But I’ll lay claim to the catbird seat—
my attic swivel-chair, with the southern sky
beaming on my belly and my carpe
diem feet. Talk about a
striptease!
Never thought I’d be so lucky:
I can both see and be me.
Must I submit to orthodoxy?
Maybe I’m obnoxious, but I’m happy,
choosing not to see myself as others see me.
I’ll be what I see!
Do I wish I were less
ambivalent about poetry?
Can I be a god-mouth after all?
Seems like emotional sophistry
when I or anybody
responds to the call:
“Please seduce me,
“feed me heart pie,
“speak in my ear and help me have a ball!” —
diamond-studded piano-ring
presented to Liberace
by Baron Hilton with a three-mil contract. What a tall
man Liberace weren’t! But they played Vegas
(sometimes making their entrance
on a trapeze),
AND they always kept all
their clothes on—a modest guy,
Do I need better resolution on
my phone camera
if my quarry is a moment not an object?
The Cheyenne and Arapaho
had no cameras
when they were slaughtered at Sand Creek,
but I was able to document
a couple of the moments I was
there
using my crappy old Samsung.
Some of the massacred Cheyenne and Arapaho
(or pieces of them) are still
lying in that shaded earth.
Not clear if it was hundreds or more than a thousand,
because we have poor resolution on our historical
perspective. Remember the
Alamo!
we holler, as we trample
all memory of the Cheyenne and Arapaho
beneath our sandal soles,
camera resolution good enough to hide any moment.
We don’t need no stinking cameras
to photograph those Cheyenne and Arapaho.
to see eternity in an hour
My irrepressible joy seemed to be funneling away,
making me wonder
how much joy I have in an average day.
But you can’t count joy,
because joy isn’t money.
I know I’ve watched my cash funnel away,
not to mention my bag of marijuan-y,
and every single other
solitary good that might sustain me
for a year or for a day. What
can I pray
for or to besides my legal tender,
which nothing will prevent from dwindling away—
especially if I plan to never die?
But in Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania,
the ballots spoke with counted joy
the hour that our ship came in this November—
an entire eternity for our trouble!
My irrepressible joy is rising today
to a total that’s a plain absurdity.
How my desires inhabit others!
Creepy entanglement!
But I don’t want to be a bother.
Thinking about old Lambert
Strether
He says good riddance
to his youth, after inhabiting
the sex life of his boss’s
son. Though sensible Maria Gostrey
doesn’t think Strether a bother,
he doesn’t cop to her
charms but retreats to the USA,
leaving the sensual ghosts his desires had blooded
to savor forever
their dispatriated dalliance—
bother to no one but Chadwick Newsome’s mother.
And poor Daisy dies of the
Roman fever
after we’d all despaired of her innocence.
How my desires inhabit others,
especially when I’m not the slightest bother!
What, other than myself, do I
enjoy?
Love is such a pumped-up word!
Using myself as a boy.
Fun to have myself for a toy!
To ignore or belittle me would be absurd.
I’d have to find something else to enjoy,
or somebody else. Why am
I so shy?
Because I don’t want to be a turd,
I guess, courting you as a boy—
am I cute or am I icky?
I suppose I’ll have to leave the herd
and wander off and enjoy
myself in my own private way,
tending to my sweet bird
of paradise—myself as a boy,
but knowing in my heart a girl
would be prettier.
I’d rather use myself as a girl.
What, in my own stead, do I enjoy?
Only you, my precious Joy!
Preparation for performance
IS the performance,
because performance-
day may never come.
Performance
implies an audience—
so, let me dedicate my performance
to you (ignoring your
reluctance).
What can be said in my defence?
Only that performance
is a full-time job, dogged persistence
what pays off in the end—
perpetual preparation for performance
a tough mistress
of time and circumstance,
supplemental performance
Here’s one, folks—
does erecting a nude statue of Donald Trump
in Central Park make America more of a joke?
T appears to be awaiting
strokes,
and he has a pink rump.
“Here’s one, folks,”
he seems to say while waiting for all
the other dicks
to have their hump,
“America’s no joke:
“here, if you dare to look,
“is my fully inflated MAGA-pump.
“Have fun while you can, folks,
“before you get whacked
“and sprayed with goo.
“America’s not a joke
“like Nixon was not a crook.
“Thank me for taking off the emperor’s clothes!”
Face it, folks,
America was already a joke.
I get anxious when I haven’t
written a poem in two days.
What if I’ve lost my grip?
But I’m always amazed—
I just sit down, and my poem
flows like praise.
So, can I drift
off once again and write the poem I haven’t written in two days,
whatever poem it is?
The ghost of McCulloch can say whether it’s like his long leap—
amazingly,
I’ve landed safely beyond the precipice.
Now all my waking thoughts are counted sheep,
assuaging my anxiety that I haven’t written a poem in two days.
How I do love you! Let me count
the ways.
I love you because we help each other sleep.
We’re both amazed
at the deep slumber-realm we’ve
strayed
into, hearing only the faintest peep
of a boast that I have written a poem in the last two days.
Let’s stay amazed!
If I want to still my voice, might
I try haiku?
Well, I take photos as I hike round my hometown.
Will they do?
Why do I have to write poems
too?
A photo, like a haiku, is a found
thing made. So, to still my voice, I could try haiku.
What’s missing, then? Not point
of view—
the eye itself having a shoot-around
with the sky,
inscribing not a single word—
not even a blue graffiti tag on a traffic
sign. Can something be a haiku
and not be articulated
language? Who
says a poem must be uttered sound?
What might just do
could be nothing louder
than boot marks in the snow,
my own brown shoes
trudging in the field of my quiet haiku-
view. Anything will do.
Bene facis, Leonard Cohen
What could make me happy except
for writing another poem?
Sometimes even a God- (or self-) appointed bard shuts up,
gets to where they can accept
the prompt no longer. Heaven feels close
to them then, but nothing makes them happy except
for lying with bated breath
in their Satipatthana pose,
feeling their bones dry up
and crumble into dust. Always
the marvelous adept—
the boy who’s risen from the foam
like Venus, true to life—except
for missing some certain glamor—bankrupt
of true cred—Queen of the Prom
dancing with a pumpkin. OK, then, I’ll shut up
and take a long, long nap.
I don’t know how far into my weird dreams I’ll roam,
but nothing will make us happy except
for me shutting the fuck up.
Trump lost and I’m still
scared.
Is scaring us to death what Trump does best?
Are we prepared
to hear more brazen lies he'll tell
with bared teeth—
intended, at least, to deprive us of our rest
for the next two months. I’m scared
he won't stop mouthing his fraud
until the courts accede and agree he's blessed
of God. Are we prepared
to learn that American law
and tradition count for less
than the spewed words of a clown who really knows how to scare
us to death, at least? He’ll
assume the prerogatives of Lord
and have us old hippies impressed
into his new model army for having our rights impaired
stealing from us our social safety
net, for sure.
The rich won’t be taxed
to help feed the rest—that’s the biggest threat I’m scared
of. I’ll have to live by my
sword
then—sword that ne'er before was struck in such a test.
Am I prepared
to bust down and deal my share
in battles I confess
I never dared imagine I’d ever have to fight? That’s why I’m scared.
I’m ill-prepared.
The wind is howling low.
The wind is howling high.
It’s too windy to sit on my back porch.
I don’t have far to go.
My home is in the sky.
The wind is howling low.
I’m ready to pack and go,
but I sleep through the night.
It’s too windy to sit on my back porch -
damn windy, but I won’t drop my
torch.
My hair is a fright.
The wind is howling low,
but see me rocking to and fro,
riddled with light!
It’s too windy to sit on my back porch,
and I’m broke but I’m flush with
cash.
I walk upright on two feet.
It’s too windy to sit on my back porch.
The wind is howling low.
I’m approaching something
that looks
Like a gang of people
There’s an American flag
There are a whole lot of people
Honking
So
My supposition is that this might be a Trump rally
It’ll be interesting to see
I’m going to find out pretty quick
Loud loud loud
Honk honk honk honk
So yeah very loud
Nope
It’s bad when you see an American flag
You immediately think it must be right-wing thugs
But it’s not
Some people in this group have an American flag
AND they have a Biden sign
So it’s just more sweetness
Sweet exciting enthusiasm
It’s wonderful to see
It’s fantastic
Woo-hoo
Ha ha
Honk honk honk honk honk honk.
There was an election yesterday, but no one was elected—
absentee ballots slow to be tallied.
Waiting has been enacted.
There's doubt that all the ballots were collected—
some may have been illegally
tossed out so that Franklin D. Roosevelt couldn’t be elected
again. I don’t think our rights have been respected.
The state rejects our agency
(we’re passive tube-watchers). Waiting is expected,
while we see if our national cathexis
on a perfervid bully
can be dissolved, so that a kind person can be elected.
I had fair hopes for Texas,
but it’s Arizona (and will it be Michigan?) for the
EC majority. Waiting is exacted
like a tax. Let’s go
out and walk in the precious
autumn sunlight, while we weep for humanity!
There was an election yesterday, but no one was elected.
America redacted?